Maybe someday we’ll have some meaningful time together. | Getty Images Whenever the Islanders miss the postseason (which is a lot), on one level I’m able to enjoy the spectacle and intensity of the Stanley Cup playoffs in a different way, free of the exhausting emotional investment and baggage that comes with talking yourself into how they might go far while watching them ultimately get eliminated. Watching the playoffs without a rooting interest is like getting to watch the melodrama of Real Housewives of Whatever Shithole Plastic Surgery County instead of actually living it because you married poorly.However, a postseason without the Islanders is not completely free of emotional investment.

I’m never truly free until every team I hate is safely eliminated. This year, that’s a little easier since several franchises I loathe did not qualify.But there are still teams to pull for, or root against. This post is mostly an excuse to ask the readership: Who are you pulling for in these playoffs? — so please let us know in comments, and feel free to skip the Player Haters Ball listing that follows, knowing that I just have to get it off my chest.The Teams That Must Not Win (and won’t anyway)Philadelphia FlyersThe Flyers made the playoffs?!?

This really is humiliating. True, the Flyers’ Cup drought is even longer than…every other non-Leafs team that has ever won the Cup, but still…no.Pittsburgh PenguinsThey’ll never admit it, but the 1980s Penguins with Mario Lemieux were essentially seen the same way the 2009-12 Islanders with John Tavares were: “Oh, man, it’s such a shame that they’re so terrible and wasting his career for six seasons and counting.” In order to win a couple of Cups — but only two, because Al Arbour > Scotty Bowman, teehee — the Penguins needed to miss the playoffs for seven out of eight years, luck into Jaromir Jagr instead of Scott Scissons, and inadvertently fleece the Whalers in a John Cullen-for-Ron Francis swap because they sought Ulf Samuelsson’s dirtiness toughness.So they have done virtually nothing brilliant as a franchise, other than luck into a shit-ton of great players in between lengthy tanks.They did it all again a decade later when they tanked-and-bankrupted into Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby (lockout lottery fix), Marc-Andre Fleury and Kris Letang. (Sorry Ryan Whitney, you insufferable windbag, you didn’t, and still do not, count.) There is nothing honorable about this franchise nor what it has “earned*” and no one outside of a very specific Pittsburgh-area subset should root for them.*I use that term loosely, in the Chris Pronger AI book sense.There appears to be some attempt at rallying behind the Penguins as Crosby’s Last Ride or something, but there is nothing feel-good in that.

Crosby has had plenty of rides. Let someone else have something.Los Angeles KingsThis team has 22 regulation wins. That’s seven fewer than the Islanders, who also were 10-0 in OT and do not deserve a postseason berth.Simply, the Kings have zero business being here.

The only possible reason they should win the Cup would be so the league finally trashes this stupid three-points-or-maybe-two-points, every-game-needs-a-winner, 3-on-3/shootout stupidity. But the Kings won’t, and even then the league surely wouldn’t.MontrealCanadiensThe other tragedy of the Nordiques-Avalanche relocation is that French Canada lost its only potential check on Canadiens’ arrogance. After the Islanders dynasty unseated the final Canadiens one in 1980, this once-storied franchise somehow lucked into two more Cups by the grace of Patrick Roy.

But as karmic penance, they are now cursed to never ever win a Cup since the Nordiques left Quebec.Amusingly, their annoying fans probably think they would’ve won the pandemic Cup if only the Islanders had slipped by the Lightning, but they are wrong.Also, remember when Martin St. Louis was so wounded by his Lightning GM not picking him for the Olympic team that he demanded a trade to the Rangers? Yeah, f- that guy.Edmonton OilersWell well well, if it isn’t dynasty interruptus!

It’s not our problem that the Oilers could never string more than two Cups in a row, keeping them from entering the Habs/Islanders dynasty echelon without an asterisk. I’m not sorry that Steve Smith scored an essential own goal off Grant Fuhr’s leg. And I’m not sorry that this franchise has yet to win another Cup despite Connor McDavid and their trio of first-overall picks in the Taylor Hall sequence.Most of all, it’s important that McDavid not win a Cup in Edmonton so he can play in a 4 Nations or Olympics or World Cup or whatever with Matthew Schaefer in a couple years and decide he needs to join that kid on Long Island.Vegas Golden KnightsNo, just no.Teams That Could Win and It’d Be…OkayDallas StarsI’ve no feelings for this franchise or most of its players, but GM Jim Nill is a longtime hockey good guy who’s done everything right since taking over the Stars. Untimely injuries, self-inflicted coaching implosions — he